Back to the Age Question (Philosophy of Photography 1/23/01)

Down in the "Melancholic?" thread, I brought up the subject of age. For the record, I'm fifty. I said something about mathematics and art being the domain of the young. In mathematics it's true that nothing significant has been done in the field by anyone over twenty-eight, despite what brain studies say is possible. Might be possible, but it hasn't happened yet.

As far as art, or specifically photography, I referred to an article about photographers over 80. The article is in Vanity Fair of January 2001. A friend gave it to me as she thought I'd like the article.

The photographers listed are: Phil Stern, Arnold Newman, Cartier-Bresson, Willy Ronis, Karsh, Leni Riefenstahl, Newton, Gordon Parks, Carl Mydans, Capa, George Silk, Ozzie Sweet, Slim Aarons, Ralph Morse, O. Winson Link (one of my favorites), Lillian Bassman, Eve Arnold, and Joe Rosenthal. All are justifiably famous for work they have done. Eve Arnold did exquisite work at 66 years old, and Newton's id and camera were working in sync in his late 50's, and he is opening a show of mostly new work in Berlin, now at 80. I haven't seen anything from that show, but am looking forward to it. We share a preference in our subject matter.

But as of yet, I haven't seen anything that "adds" to the art from any of them...recently.

In the earlier post, I mentioned David LaChapelle as an example of youth and creativity. His colorful staged images taken from the big screen sets of his father and his comicbook style hadn't been seen before he did it. Rishad Mistri is another that has taken pop culture and made it photographic. Regardless of what we think of pop culture, it's of the people, huge, not going away, and for the large part ripe for either journalist photography or art photography. Meisel, Testino, Roversi and other "kids" have all brought something new and beautiful to photography. It remains to be seen how long that new will be beautiful, of course.

The article I mentioned about "photo survivors" was in American Photo of January/February 2001. Once again, the survivors are still working, still selling pictures, but haven't contributed anything new to the art in a long time. But their styles at least remain beautiful.

I apologise for making reference mostly to fashion photographers, but that is the area I'm most familiar with. Fashion is by definition dynamic. As such it's a breeding ground for the new and different, good and bad. Though it's also full of plagarists, they aren't remembered long.

Question: Does age play a role in creativity? Is experience in the craft a benefit or a barrier to creativity? What is "creativity" really?

(The photographs are from my San Diego Club Photographs.)

- D. Brian Nelson